Asia Minute: Japan Coral Study Not Encouraging

Coral reefs are a focus for many scientists here in Hawai‘i and around the world. A new government study of Japan’s largest coral reef confirms what scientists have been saying. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.

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Rising ocean temperatures and coral reefs do not make a healthy mix.

The latest confirmation of that comes from Japan — which has just released an extensive government study using about a thousand monitoring sites around the country’s largest reef.

Some of the culprits include coral-eating starfish, and also several episodes of mass bleaching — the last one taking place in 2016.

Credit photolib.noaa.gov

Another steady factor that hurts coral: rising ocean temperatures — as well as increasing acidification of the water. According to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, healthy coral is crucial for the well-being of other life in the sea.

NOAA says that corals make up less than one percent of the earth’s ocean environment, but are home to roughly 25-percent of the world’s marine life.

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